


put your arms around me (and i'm home)

by Racethewind_10



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Bering & Wells Holiday Gift Exchange, F/F, Fluff, Happy Ending, Helena finally sees a therapist, Helena is as extra as ever, Light Angst, some sappy shit right here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 00:24:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9047456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Racethewind_10/pseuds/Racethewind_10
Summary: Crazycat9449 prompted "I’m down for anything that has those two idiots realize that the warehouse is their home, HG is not a normal woman, and that they should be kissing." I tried my best.  Happy Holidays crazycat! <3





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crazycat9449](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazycat9449/gifts).



  
_My dearest Myka,_

Three words she’s written a hundred times, the lines and curves of the last so familiar to her eyes and hand Helena could probably trace it blindfolded.  Stark black ink is a poor substitute for the woman herself, however.  Her hand moves easily now but it didn’t at first, fingers tripping and stumbling over Myka’s name like a sailor on land for the first time in months, longing for the steadiness of shore and utterly incapable of embracing it.

_My dearest Myka,_

For all that the written word has been Helena’s refuge for most of her life, Dr. Johnson's suggestion of incorporating letter writing into her therapy had come as a surprise. Silly, perhaps in hindsight, but then, as Giselle is fond of pointing out, the whole point of her job is to help Helena see things she’s missed.

“What do I write?”

“What do you want to tell her?”

 _Everything_.

 _My dearest Myka_ ,

Correspondence with Claudia is somewhat easier. For one, she emails, and there's something in the impersonal blinking white face of an email window that offers a soothing distance, like a gauze bandage over a wound. There are also fewer conflicting feelings, and Claudia’s forgiveness for abandoning them comes swiftly (followed quickly by admonishments to come home, but Helena still wakes up from dreams of fire and rage and a gun pointed at Myka’s head and knows its not time yet.) Claudia keeps her updated on the rest of the team, mostly with anecdotes that never fail to make Helena smile (she senses Leena’s voice in the tales and in Claudia’s happiness and it makes her glad.) Only one letter makes her balk and she has to reread it several times to make sense of Claudia’s rapid leaps of exposition.

_There was this stupid table, omg HG it was so freaky. Myka thought she was in love with PETE?? And I was apparently a closet Dom with a leather fetish let me tell you it was wild there for a bit. Got it neutralized though so no biggy. But Pete and Myka still can’t be around each other without it being hilariously awkward. Pete still thinks you’re dating Dr. Johnson btw, Myka and I figured he didn’t need to know. Oh and Leena says…._

She writes to Adelaide and her hand shakes only a little. The letters she receives in reply start out terse and short, but bloom like the girl herself as the months pass and she begins a new school, making friends and finding her own family of peers and teachers.

She doesn’t write to Nate. He doesn’t contact her. Adelaide makes a passing reference to her dad dating again and the girl seems unbothered by it. Distantly Helena wishes him happiness but he is nothing more than a memory now.

She’s getting better at letting go of those.

 _My dearest Myka_ ,

The letters pile up in the drawer of her writing table (one of the few extravagances Helena allowed herself in her otherwise spartan apartment). At first she carves words into the pages like wounds, tears she refused to shed a century ago dragging ink bleeding across the paper. But Giselle is correct and the more she writes, the more she begins to understand the shape of some things. The pain doesn’t go away - it may never - but her hand steadies.

 _My dearest Myka_ ,

She doesn’t send them but her fingers trace the shape of Myka’s name a little easier each time.

_My dearest Myka,_

_I hope you are well, I miss you_

_My dearest Myka,_

_I saw a book today I think you might enjoy,_

_Though I don't deserve it, I ask your forgiveness,_

_I regret so much of what I’ve done but mostly how I might have let you think I ever wanted to be apart from you._

_I've been in contact with the Regents and they are willing to let me return,_

_My dearest Myka_ ,

_I love you,_

_Forever yours,_

_Helena_.

In the end she sends only one. The only one that matters. And waits.

The snow is already heavy on the ground when Helena slips the letter into the postbox but it’s hardly pretty - dirt and oil and the salt from the streets tinging everything brown. Helena spends a lot of time thinking about the B&B, whether Leena let anyone help with the decorating this year or if they’re all still banned for failing to meet her exacting standards. She thinks about Arthur’s cookies and Claudia’s laugh, about Pete and Steven but mostly (always) about Myka.

“I never did learn to wait well,” she admits to Giselle over coffee. Helena has formally terminated their professional relationship, “Whatever happens, I don’t think Wisconsin is the place for me,” she admitted when the doctor inquired as to why.

Giselle merely raises one eyebrow. “You don’t say,” she teases dryly.

In a fit of immaturity, Helena sticks out her tongue but she savors the levity. Laughter no longer feels like a weight on her ribs. When Helena leaves Dr. Johnson at her doorstep, its with a gentle kiss on her cheek and a soft “thank you,” that feels entirely inadequate for what Giselle has given her. Giselle touches Helena’s cheek. “Be well,” she says before turning to her door.

When Helena gets back to apartment, the mail is waiting. Her hands shake as she opens a letter with a familiar return address. It contains only two words.

 _Come home_.

So she does.

In the end, Helena has very little to take with her, just two small suitcases. Perhaps it’s fitting. Her writing, her inventions, her history, all of waits for her at the Warehouse…along with what she hopes is her future. When she closes the door to her apartment, she walks away without looking back.

 

* * *

 

The snow in South Dakota falls thick and heavy, and by the time Helena reaches the outskirts of Univille the world is a wash of white, road only barely distinguishable from the piles already lining it. It takes her triple the time the drive would normally last and her shoulders ache by the time she puts the car in park but as she looks up from where her headlights cut through the falling flakes, Helena feels all the tension leave her.

The B&B looks exactly like she remembers it. Colored lights outline the roof and porch and wind around several of the snow-covered bushes in the front yard, spilling rainbow puddles of light across the white velvet blanket that covers everything. This year’s massive fir is visible in the front window, decked out in its own lights and baubles. The house looks still but the windows throughout are lit and its barely 9pm. They’re home.

Home.

Helena learned long ago that home is not a place, but a feeling, and as she watches the front door open and a familiar silhouette emerge, the warmth that beats outward from her heart carries her out of the car and up the porch without truly feeling the bite of the winter air.

Myka’s eyes are greener than she remembers, but the way she smiles, the way Helena’s heart flutters in response, is exactly the same and Helena, after pouring words onto paper for months, faced at last with the reality of everything she has wanted to say for so long, finds her voice fails her.

It’s Myka who reaches out, brushing the dusting of snow from her shoulders and tucking a strand of hair Helena hadn’t even noticed behind her ear. Myka’s fingertips brush Helena’s cheek and she’s so warm, the touch burns. 

Helena shudders. 

“Helena,”

Helena opens her eyes and smiles. “My dearest Myka.”

Myka’s eyes crinkle at the corners and this time, when she pulls Helena to her, it’s a beginning, not an ending.

“I love you too.”

  
Fin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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